Rep. Richard Neal said "the bill has come due" and Congress must honor the nation's debt.
During a contentious debate that lead Republican House leaders to postpone a vote on a GOP-sponsored measure to raise the nation's debt ceiling, members of the Massachusetts delegation, all of them Democrats, sought to pin blame for the nation's debt on their Republican colleagues.
Prepared remarks released by Rep. John Olver's office said that President Obama "cannot be blamed" for spikes in the national debt, and included a chart blaming recent Republican administrations for large deficits.
"They would default on our debt -- causing a global financial crisis – rather than see hedge fund managers, corporate jet owners or phenomenally profitable oil companies pay higher taxes," Olver said. "Their call for fiscal responsibility rings hollow, and the fiscal history of the last three decades clearly shows that."
Olver's colleague, Richard Neal, D-Springfield, said on the House floor Thursday that the debate over the debt ceiling "is not about new spending."
"This is the credit card that has come due for the irresponsibility that we witnessed in this chamber and across this Congress for eight years of the Bush administration," Neal said.
Senator Scott Brown, a Republican who supported a previous House GOP measure that failed in the Senate, released a statement last night calling the failure to reach bipartisan consensus in the House "pathetic."